It is well known that without the help of an administrator or caregiver, disabled people who are unable to reposition him or herself, due to their disability, do not get the proper routine movement required to prevent pressure ulcers. Often times, due to the number of patients assigned to occupational therapists, nurses, or caregivers, these administrators are unable to provide ideal movement to some patients. Moving patients can also take a toll on a caregiver's health and body. Therefore, it would be desired to develop a system that could notify a caregiver when someone has been sedentary for too long and develop a way of moving the sedentary individual automatically if the caregiver could not attend to them in time.
It is also well known that over 250,000 Americans have spinal cord injuries with 52% of spinal cord injury victims considered paraplegic and 47% quadriplegic. Most paraplegics live normal lives after their accident, but some admit that it is difficult at times. After a life-changing injury such as paralysis, most patients are confined to a wheelchair for the rest of their lives. Prolonged sitting and lack of change in posture or position of sitting can cause welts or pressure ulcers to be generated on an individual's body. Therefore, it would be further desired to develop a system that notifies a caregiver when someone has not moved for a while as well as moving them autonomously. In particular, it would be desired to be able to time a patient's movement and display the location where the most force is applied for that time period. In this manner, the information could then be used to move the patient as needed in order to distribute the force evenly and combat the development of pressure ulcers.
It is also well known that often times, when people study what ailments plague the elderly, they immediately think of Alzheimer's disease, cancer, stroke, and/or diabetes. These are all extremely serious ailments that greatly decrease the quality of life and often cause death. Some of these illnesses have been studied for decades and still are not fully understood, let alone made preventable. However, there is a condition that affects 2.5 million people in the United States each year and results in 60,000 annual fatalities. Unlike the other conditions, this disease is 100% preventable, and is known as a pressure ulcer.
It is important to note that pressure ulcers do not occur independently of other illnesses. They are most often the result of other disease processes that result in immobility such as Alzheimer's, paralysis, etc. They will continually reoccur even if treated, because of other diseases preventing the removal of the source of the pressure ulcer (i.e., we are treating a symptom but the disease that caused it remains unchanged). Pressure ulcers are known to be fatal in 60% of the elderly within one (1) year of hospital discharge (www.nih.gov).
Pressure ulcers have four stages with each stage being more severe than the previous stage. The first stage is redness and irritation on the surface of the skin. The second stage forms a small crater in the skin and appears to look like a blister on the skin. This stage is more painful than the previous stage but can still be easily treated. The third stage pierces the tissue of the skin which makes it more painful and takes much longer to heal. This stage also needs to be monitored more closely in order to prevent it from progressing into a more severe wound. The fourth and final stage often times results in fatality. It penetrates through the muscle and causes an open wound all the way to the bone, which makes it difficult to treat and extremely painful. It is to be understood that, at times, doctors may deem a pressure ulcer “unstageable” due to a decreased ability to visualize the depth of the pressure ulcer.
The areas most affected by pressure ulcers are those that have continuous contact with a surface. One way to prevent pressure ulcers is by shifting areas and amounts of pressure at least once every hour. Most people do this naturally as the body receives signals from nerve endings in the form of discomfort. It is known that people who are most at risk for pressure ulcers are those unable to shift themselves whether it be due to frailty, lack of strength, or a debilitating illness. As a result, a caregiver is often the best solution to ensure that those at risk get the proper movement in order to prevent these ulcers. Unfortunately, it is not always practical to expect a person to provide constant care to another.
It is even further known that prior to the present invention, as set forth in general terms above and more specifically below, to employ various types of pressure relief seating systems. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,030,351 by Schmidt et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,036,271 by Wilkinson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,560,803 by Zur, U.S. Pat. No. 7,461,897 by Kruse et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 7,996,940 by Dahm et al. While these various pressure relief systems may have been generally satisfactory, there is nevertheless a need for a new and improved pressure distribution system that is designed to use load cells to read areas of pressure and microcontrollers to measure the time of pressure to determine when is too long or too much for the pressure such that the system is able to alert a pump system connected to airbladders to inflate or deflate accordingly in order to shift into opposite areas of pressure, therefore ensuring the patient is relieved in the high pressure areas.
It is a purpose of this invention to fulfill these and other needs in the pressure distribution art in a manner more apparent to the skilled artisan once given the following disclosure.